If you're going for LoH returns, then yes, higher IAS will give more life returns. However, AP cost increases with IAS so most, including myself, prefer to run with lower APS for better sustainability. Further, with low APS and single target sustainability, you can add Arcane Orbit instead of a sig spell like you mention and as my build depicts.

Overall I really like Disintegrate and feel like it can play like the old Archon builds with a little gearing and with some skill selection choices. When you add in teleport you add a lot of extra survivability and utility, so I highly recommend running that if you play on higher torment levels.

Absolutely. More IAS makes you "tankier" and increases straight damage per second. Low IAS increases sustainability. But as far as I know the relationship is linear. You still do the same damage per AP spent; but just spend your AP faster and thus deal your damage and gain LoH faster. If this isn't so let me know.

I have yet to see your build; Would you post it so we may compare and contrast?

You can see my build by clicking my profile in my sig. It's nothing spectacular and I do change between some various skills depending on group play or solo play and t3 vs t4, but generally it's Chaos Nexus with Force Weapon, Teleport - Safe Passage, Arcane Orbit, Sparkflint or cannoneer, and either Power of the Storm or Force Armor depending on torment level and what bosses I'm fighting. I think Force Armor is great for key wardens, but power of the storm is pretty wicked for sustainability. Passives are Illusionist and then I hover between some combination of Temporal flux (so great against treasure goblins) , Glass cannon (usually with force armor), Blur, and Astral Presence.

You're right about the mechanics. Basically you do 551% weapon damage every attack turn (based on Chaos Nexus damage, for example). Then the loh tics occur at a rate of 3 per attack turn. That means with 2 APS you get 6 loh tics, effectively, per second. With 1 APS you only get 3, so you doubled your life returns. The problem is you also doubled your AP cost, so with 1 APS you might be able to channel indefinitely but with 2 APS you can only channel for 15s against a boss, let's say. APoC returns are linear with APS, I think, but net AP usage is not, since you have that base 10 AP regen that doesn't scale with AP. That means there is an APS for a given APoC and CC that lets you sustain essentially indefinitely against a single target, but above that APS you have a net deficit in AP every second against singles (like Azmodean).

Part of that impact depends on how you play. If you're running through story mode, it might be an issue. If you're just farming, but farming high torment where it takes more than 10-15s to kill yellow elites, that might be a problem. If you mostly farm lower torment where elites die in 10s or less, then it's probably not much of an issue since you have fairly small amounts of times where you face a single mob for anywhere near 15s+.

If you're going for LoH returns, then yes, higher IAS will give more life returns. However, AP cost increases with IAS so most, including myself, prefer to run with lower APS for better sustainability. Further, with low APS and single target sustainability, you can add Arcane Orbit instead of a sig spell like you mention and as my build depicts.

Overall I really like Disintegrate and feel like it can play like the old Archon builds with a little gearing and with some skill selection choices. When you add in teleport you add a lot of extra survivability and utility, so I highly recommend running that if you play on higher torment levels.

Absolutely. More IAS makes you "tankier" and increases straight damage per second. Low IAS increases sustainability. But as far as I know the relationship is linear. You still do the same damage per AP spent; but just spend your AP faster and thus deal your damage and gain LoH faster. If this isn't so let me know.

I have yet to see your build; Would you post it so we may compare and contrast?

You can see my build by clicking my profile in my sig. It's nothing spectacular and I do change between some various skills depending on group play or solo play and t3 vs t4, but generally it's Chaos Nexus with Force Weapon, Teleport - Safe Passage, Arcane Orbit, Sparkflint or cannoneer, and either Power of the Storm or Force Armor depending on torment level and what bosses I'm fighting. I think Force Armor is great for key wardens, but power of the storm is pretty wicked for sustainability. Passives are Illusionist and then I hover between some combination of Temporal flux (so great against treasure goblins) , Glass cannon (usually with force armor), Blur, and Astral Presence.

You're right about the mechanics. Basically you do 551% weapon damage every attack turn (based on Chaos Nexus damage, for example). Then the loh tics occur at a rate of 3 per attack turn. That means with 2 APS you get 6 loh tics, effectively, per second. With 1 APS you only get 3, so you doubled your life returns. The problem is you also doubled your AP cost, so with 1 APS you might be able to channel indefinitely but with 2 APS you can only channel for 15s against a boss

What's the difference between doing 551%/ sec for 20 seconds and 1102%/sec for 10 seconds? As far as I know, none, except you did you damage faster and the stuff that would have taken 20 seconds to die was dead in 10. The only real difference would be if you ran without a signature spell OR you do like I do; Use Archon when I'm out of AP to refill AP while continuing to channel disintegrate.

In which case wouldn't the latter scenario be much better? I think it does and is. We'll see how RoS shakes things up when you have to shift from dps to better survivability.

Your comparison is with 1 person having just twice the APS as someone else. In that case, yes, they do twice the dps. The more logical comparison is having different APS but similar char sheet dps, in which case you can do the same amount of damage in 10s as the other person, but you still have half your AP filled to continue for another 10s against a boss if needed. As I said above, that might not matter if nothing lives longer than 10s, so it's somewhat a personal preference. I just prefer to trade as much IAS for CC+CD or other dps stats.

I tried Archon for elites and such and just prefer using Arcane Orbit since it's more consistent damage against trash mobs and pretty decent against elites, especially since I can gain AP against singles with my APS. For campaign mode play on t3-t4 Archon is just underwhelming with my gearset (since I'm looking more for cost reduction than CD reduction, and still haven't gotten a moonlight ward).

I tried Archon for elites and such and just prefer using Arcane Orbit since it's more consistent damage against trash mobs and pretty decent against elites, especially since I can gain AP against singles with my APS. For campaign mode play on t3-t4 Archon is just underwhelming with my gearset (since I'm looking more for cost reduction than CD reduction, and still haven't gotten a moonlight ward).

For high Torment levels (5-6) Archon is amazing. Makes you take less damage which means you can face-tank, makes you do more damage, which means elites die faster, and can provide a Teleport if need be (so you do not have to run Teleport, which I think is not that amazing to begin with, as explained in my guide).

For lower Torment levels you kill elites soooooo fast, though, that Archon is nearly useless, so you're right there. Then again, your character is quite far from being able to do higher Torment levels, as it's such a glass cannon. If you would give up with the idea of infinite AP through a lot of APoC and get items, like your hat, without APoC (and the ring, legacy SoJ lol, it's so bad), you would increase your Toughness to reasonable levels and be able to do higher Torment levels.

I don't use Archon to face tank because I face tank with my current setup. I didn't try the teleport rune because it's too unreliable having a 120s CD on a spell to use teleport, when you ultimately should just want to nuke the entire time Archon is active. I tried with the aoe blast rune (Arcane Destruction, I think, but can't remember the name since I rarely used anything except improved before 2.0) and it was nice for killing elites, but with 120s CD it just wasn't useful when elites die in 10s and I frequently fight elites more often than 120s apart. If I had more +arcane damage items (still can't get a moonlight ward to drop), then maybe I could see more appeal to Archon. For now I'd rather gear to +dis where I can, which doesn't help Archon at all. Still, I see the merits in its use, and I was just saying it's not for me. Difference of opinion.

Legacy SoJ is great for elites, which is why I use it. It also allows good sustainability so I can gain the extra dps lost from a dps ring by using Arcane Orbit. Without sustainability I lose effective dps whenever I have to switch to a sig spell, which really adds up against bosses (again, been playing campaign mode). I haven't read through your guide but I just love teleport because of the huge utility and survival boost it gives, and itmakes itmuch easier to run with lower EHP, but that's a personal preference.

My hat still gives me more dps than a 300 int, 4.5CC wizard hat, so it's not too bad. If I can find one with int, CC, and +dis, I'd likely switch to it.

I don't really care about trying to run Torment 5-6, but if I wanted to, I'd likely change things around (more EHP at least) but I don't find it worthwhile because of the added time it takes to kill mobs compared to t3-4. I prefer to run where I can kill elites in about 10-15s, sometimes less, so I stick to t3-4 while hunting for some useful legendaries. For me higher torment is about DPS, not just higher toughness, and I just don't feel like I have sufficient effective dps to want to try the higher difficulty.

On a side note, if they ever get around to fixing Arcane Dynamo with channeled skills, I'll likely switch back to a sig spell and use that, though my preferred sig spell for that is Electrocute (usually lightning blast, but the AP return one works too).

I find myself being in agreement with both of you. A few points to add: im not certain moonlight ward stacks with orbit. They dont seem to proc together. They seem to share the same internal CD. legacy Sojs are one of thr best carry over items in the game. Archon is pretty great for crypt runs and refilling apology. I believe I have 1.30 million toughness ana plus frozen storm and t6 scares the crap out of me.